The LAST Festival Gathering

A month ago, we spent a wonderful and very busy week in Baltimore at the last Festival Gathering of the Network of Biblical Storytellers, International. It’s only the “last FG” because a good decision has been made to change the name from “Festival Gathering” to “Conference” which will help our academic participants get funding from their institutions to attend, and be more clear about the nature of the event. Also shorter. That being said, I don’t think the spirit of festival and gathering will change. I expect it will continue to be a rich time of worship, keynotes, workshops, fellowship, fun, learning, networking, and biblical storytelling!

We attended the NBSI Seminar before the FG and with somewhat more than a dozen “storytelling scholars” and “scholarly storytellers” lived deeply into the Elijah-Elisha cycle. These fascinating and important stories will be the focus for next year’s epic telling. Amelia led workshops all three days this year and served as educational consultant for the Academy for Biblical Storytellers which met after the Festival Gathering.

The Festival Gathering took place at the Maritime Institute, where we have been the last couple of years and will be again for the next few, because we love this place! Food, accommodations, learning spaces, gathering spaces, grounds, location–all excellent. Here is one of the places our group met a couple of times (for opening and closing worship).

To close out the “Favorite Bible Stories” session, Tom was invited to tell the story that inspired the founding of the Network almost fifty years ago: the healing of the paralytic from Mark 2. “Rise, pick up your pallet, and go home!”

We were SO happy to be back, having missed last year due to our getting COVID the week before. We made up for lost time this year, meeting so many friends, old and new, and being reminded over and over of the power of learning and telling the stories of our faith.

“Even the dogs…”

Dogs have a prominent role in Mark’s story of Jesus and the Gentile woman whose daughter is possessed by a demon. So how fitting that Tippy made a guest appearance for our first September Monday with Jesus video. She comes into the “studio” early in the recording, but isn’t allowed on-camera until the very end. It’s one of our longer recordings, but also one of our favorites.

You are invited to view our “Monday with Jesus” videos on YouTube. They feature a telling of the upcoming lectionary Gospel followed by Q&A commentary. We send out emails on Monday morning (hence the name “Monday with Jesus”) with a link to the video along with some brief comments, a verse or two from the story, graphics, and sometimes a bonus item. If you want to be on the elist to receive “Monday with Jesus” emails, send me a message: amelia@gotell.org. Our YouTube channel is GoTellStory.